CHAP, xm DARWINISM IN ETHICS: ALEXANDER 137 



ethical conception AB ? conscience falters and grows 

 embarrassed, or remits the matter for analysis to the 

 laboratory of ethical science. From this point on- 

 wards conscience is dumb, and Mr. Alexander acts 

 as its proxy, or works up, as he judges good, the 

 material with which it has furnished him. 



This criticism must not be misunderstood. We 

 should not think for a moment of denying the rights 

 and privileges of reflection, or of questioning its value. 

 When moral opinion has done its utmost in the shape 

 of healthy instinct, very much remains to be learned 

 from the brooding meditative critic, who insists that 

 we shall "see life steadily and see it whole," and who 

 therefore brings our scattered thoughts into focus and 

 tunes them together as a harmonious system. When 

 that is faithfully done the moral philosopher is not 

 the tyrant, but the minister atque interpres of con- 

 science, carrying on its own work and giving it a 

 higher perfection. He may indeed do more than 

 this. He may provisionally call in question the 

 teachings of conscience; he may subject them to 

 tests ; provided he recognises that conscience has 

 its own contributions to make to any final synthesis. 

 But all this describes something very different from 

 Professor Alexander's treatment of the subject. We 

 do not blame him for revising or modifying the dicta 

 of moral instinct, but for the kind of revision he prac- 

 tises, one which ignores that the process of inter- 

 pretation is begun by conscience itself; one which 

 lays down the law upon questions of morals in obe- 

 dience to non-moral principles; one which treats 

 the law thus laid down as decisive against the moral 

 claims of free will. Conscience is invoked to supply 



